Passenger Traffic Down by 81% at European Airports

Photo source: @ACI Europe

Passenger traffic at European airports has decreased by 81 percent as a result of quarantine-based travel restrictions in many areas, ACI Europe said.

The organization’s overall figures reflect data up to and including November across the European airport networks, with the stark lost passenger threshold of 1.5 billion so far this year passed on November 15.

Airports in the EU, EEA, Switzerland and the UK are currently seeing passenger traffic decreasing by an average of 86 percent compared to last year.

“These airports are bracing with an accelerating downward trend in passenger traffic. Airlines continue to cut back planned capacity in response to the further extension of local lockdowns in many countries – which are only adding further pain to the one already inflicted by severe cross border travel restrictions,” said ACI Europe Director General Olivier Jankovec.

“As things stand, passenger traffic is heading back towards another full collapse similar to the one experienced in second quarter, when volumes were down by 96 percent,” he underlined.

Passenger traffic in the rest of Europe remains somehow more resilient, currently decreasing by 59 percent, a rate that appears to be fairly stable at the moment.

Airports in Russia and Turkey are clearly outperforming other markets, due to the relative dynamism of their domestic market.

Disruption highlighted in airport ranking reversal

According to ACI Europe, the situation has turned the top 10 European airport league upside down.

In September, the busiest European airport was Antalya with just 2.25 million passengers (-53.5 percent), followed by Moscow-Sheremetyevo (-53.5 percent), Moscow-Domodedovo (-26.2 percent) and Istanbul (-71 percent).

London-Heathrow, which normally holds the top position only ranked 10th, behind Paris-CDG (8th) and Amsterdam-Schiphol (9th) – with these major hubs also being surpassed by Istanbul-Sabiha Gokcen (5th), Moscow-Vnukovo (6th) and Saint Petersburg (7th).

Other major hubs like Frankfurt and Munich did not even make it to the top 10 league.